


Absolution

by ImpishTubist



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Implied Drug Use, Kidfic, Language, injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-18
Updated: 2013-06-18
Packaged: 2017-12-15 08:06:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/847239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpishTubist/pseuds/ImpishTubist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year after Sherlock’s return from the dead and on the heels of a near-disastrous case, John discovers that his best friend isn’t done keeping secrets from him</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** I don't own them.
> 
> **Beta:** Notluvulongtime
> 
> This was written in response to [this challenge,](http://letswritesherlock.tumblr.com/) which gave the following prompt: _After a nearly disastrous case, Sherlock and John share a tense taxi ride back to Baker Street. With emotions running high, they finally arrive back at 221B, and then…_
> 
> Please note all the tags before choosing to proceed. This takes place post-Hiatus, and contains a minor spoiler for ACD’s “The Sign of Four.” Many thanks to Kim for her beta skills and helpful medical tips. Further notes at the end.
> 
> Kim also created [a lovely photoset ](http://notluvulongtime.tumblr.com/post/53138222568/proof-that-love-is-enough-sherlock-victor)to go along with this story. Go check it out; it's gorgeous!
> 
> And Eloquy has made [a lovely piece of artwork](http://flyingpoisson.tumblr.com/post/54460027498/where-i-foray-into-sherlock-victor-and-their) to go along with the final chapter. Thank you so much!

The air between them was thick. 

John stared pointedly out the cab’s window, his hand clenched into a fist on his knee. Beside him, Sherlock was slouched in his seat, one leg bouncing in barely-concealed frustration and pent-up energy.

“You almost died, you realise,” John said tersely. 

“I’m well aware,” Sherlock said distractedly.

“And?”

Sherlock let out a frustrated breath.

“And _what_ , John?”

John’s thumb sought the ring on his left hand, which he rubbed in agitation. 

“Doesn’t your life mean _anything_ to you?” he asked finally, and meant, _Don’t you know how much your life means to me?_

Sherlock waved a hand dismissively.

“The case remains unsolved. That’s the only thing that concerns me right now.”

“The _only thing -_ You utter arse,” John snarled. “Do you have _any idea_ -”

He broke off, but felt Sherlock turn to look at him. 

“Do you have any idea what it would do to me if you died? _Again?_ ” John finished finally. The silence that followed was heavy, and John felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, as though the air around them had suddenly become charged. “Do you ever do anything but think about yourself? Fucking hell, Sherlock, I can’t go through that again! I can’t watch you die.”

Before Sherlock could reply, though, the cab was stopping just outside Baker Street. John paid the cabbie while Sherlock left the car, slamming the door with more force than was necessary. He was halfway up the steps when John finally entered the building, and didn’t bother to wait for John before unlocking the door to their flat. 

John dashed up the stairs after him, adrenaline thrumming through his limbs - 

\- And slammed into Sherlock’s back. 

“What the hell -”

Sherlock was frozen on the threshold of 221b, his hand still grasping the door handle and the door partway open. John, a sinking feeling in his stomach, nudged Sherlock the rest of the way into the flat and looked around.

“Ah, there they are,” Mycroft Holmes said calmly. He was standing by the fireplace. “Welcome back, gentlemen. I’m sorry about your case, Sherlock. I’m sure you’ll solve it eventually.”

John’s eyes flicked to the sofa. Greg Lestrade was sitting there, dressed in jeans and a faded pullover. He gave a weak wave in greeting, and John knew immediately that something was very wrong. 

And so, apparently, did Sherlock.

“What’s going on?” Sherlock demanded. “What’s happened?”

Mycroft’s face turned grim. Lestrade got to his feet.

“He’s missing,” was all Mycroft said to Sherlock. The words meant nothing to John, but clearly Sherlock knew exactly what--and who--he was talking about.

“Missing,” Sherlock repeated, a hard edge to his voice. “And why, _exactly,_ is he missing?”

Mycroft actually looked slightly uncomfortable, but he didn’t shrink away under his brother’s harsh gaze.

“He was doing some work for me in Norfolk this week. He failed to check in at the appointed time this morning.”

Sherlock blinked at him, as though he didn’t quite understand.

“Norfolk? What was he doing back in the country?”

“Work,” Mycroft repeated, and Sherlock narrowed his eyes.

“He was _retired_ , Mycroft,” he said slowly, dangerously.

“Technically, _yes_ , but -”

Sherlock’s eyes blazed.

“But _what?”_ he asked in a low voice. “What did you do?”

Mycroft took a deep breath.

“Now and again, I require his expertise. It is unfortunate, I realise, but also unavoidable.”

John had never seen Sherlock look truly horrified before, but he was now, his face gone ashen and his eyes wide. And then his eyes narrowed, and he looked every bit the murderer that people sometimes accused him of being.

“He was raising a child,” Sherlock said, his voice rising with his temper. “He was raising a child _on his own -”_

“Yes, and whose fault was that?” Mycroft asked mildly. 

The remark was as effective as a physical blow, and Sherlock took a step back. He paled first, and then an angry flush began to creep up his neck. 

“You _imbecile_ -” he hissed.

“Sherlock -”

“You lying piece of -”

_ “Sherlock.” _

This time it was Lestrade who bellowed the name, and they all turned to look at him. He nodded to the kitchen.

There was a little girl standing in the doorway, no more than seven or eight. She was dressed in a light green jumper and blue pajama bottoms, and her waist-length brown hair was tied back in a sleep-mussed ponytail. Her face was puffy with sleep, but her eyes were wide and alert, and they were fixed on Sherlock.

“Ah,” Mycroft said. He cleared his throat uncomfortably, and then looked at John. “Doctor Watson, this is my niece. Violet.”

“Niece,” John repeated. His eyes flicked to Sherlock, who appeared to be frozen to the spot, staring at the girl. “You mean -”

“She’s always been a quiet thing,” Mycroft went on, ignoring John’s words. “She gets that from her father, I suppose.”

Indeed, Violet hadn’t said a word, and she had come upon them so quietly that it made John wonder how much of their conversation she had overheard before Lestrade noticed her standing there. But Sherlock was far from quiet, and even when he wasn’t speaking managed to bang and clatter his way around the flat. It was a strange remark to make, not to mention completely wrong.

“Her other father, John,” Sherlock clarified before John could even think to ask. His words were absent, as he was still transfixed by Violet. “My ex-husband. Come here, Vi.”

The last sentence was soft, and spoken only to Violet. Sherlock sank into a crouch and held out a hand. Violet didn’t move.

“Daddy’s gone,” she said finally. Sherlock’s jaw tightened.

“I know,” he said. “But we’re going to get him back.”

Violet’s face started to crumple. 

“What if you don’t?” she asked in a wavering voice. 

Sherlock looked fierce.

“I _will_ ,” he said in a low voice. “I’m going to get him back.”

Violet finally pushed herself off the doorframe and took a stumbling step towards Sherlock. It seemed that was invitation enough for him, because he straightened and moved towards her, catching her just as her knees started to buckle. He swept her up into his arms, and she buried her face in his neck and started to sob. He paced over to the window, and John watched as Violet fisted tiny hands into Sherlock’s shirt, clinging to him. He murmured inaudible reassurances in her ear, a broad hand rubbing slow circles into her back. 

John turned to the other two men.

“He has a _daughter_?” he hissed to Mycroft. “Why am I only finding out about this now?”

“It wasn’t exactly your business, Doctor Watson,” Mycroft said, arching an eyebrow at him.

“Not my - he’s my _best friend_ , for Christ’s sake. How is that not a relevant thing for me to know?”

“It’s a touchy subject,” Lestrade said in an undertone. “The divorce wasn’t amicable, and they moved abroad. He only gets to see Violet a few times a year. He hates it.”

John felt his eyebrows rise. _Not amicable_ , his arse. Maybe at the time, but he had seen the look on Sherlock’s face just now when he realised that something had happened to his ex-husband (for John could only assume that he was the missing man in question.) Sherlock had looked nothing short of terrified.

“They weren’t at the funeral,” he said, trying to fit this previously-unknown piece of Sherlock’s life into the puzzle that comprised his best friend. 

But Lestrade shook his head.

“Yes, they were,” he said quietly. 

“I didn’t see them.”

“Be fair, John. About how with it were you in the first place?” Lestrade pointed out. “Christ, even I didn’t notice them until Victor came up to say hello.”

_ Victor _ . John raked his memory, but he couldn’t remember Sherlock ever even mentioning an acquaintance by that name, let alone someone a good deal more intimate. 

And then he thought back on the funeral, that foggy June morning that was already two years past. He remembered only bits and pieces of the day. Lestrade’s eulogy stood out, as did the mostly-empty church, its pews filled only with Sherlock’s closest friends and a few loyal clients. 

He recalled then Lestrade talking to a man after the conclusion of the service, a man whose eyes were bruised from too many nights awake and whose mouth was lined with tension. He had been balancing a tearful little girl on his hip, a child whose brunette hair had been cropped to just below her chin and who was wearing a tasteful black and purple dress. John had noticed them only because of the girl, who was the only child at the service, and because Lestrade embraced them both warmly before they departed.

It must have been them. 

Violet eventually calmed down, and when Sherlock had wiped the tears from her face he rejoined the group. He balanced the little girl easily on his hip, and Violet rested her head on his shoulder, clearly on the verge of falling asleep. 

“Violet, this is Doctor Watson. Say hello,” Sherlock said calmly, all of his earlier anger set aside. Violet lifted her head to gaze at John out of bloodshot eyes, and then a shadow of a smile crossed her features before she buried her face in Sherlock’s shoulder again. He raised an incredulous eyebrow at her. “Are you being shy?”

“Daddy reads me his stories,” she whispered. “I know them _all.”_

Sherlock rolled his eyes. Lestrade passed a hand over his mouth to hide his smile. Even Mycroft looked slightly amused.

“Your dad has good taste in stories,” John told her, ducking his head to meet her gaze and giving a smile when he caught her eye. “It’s nice to meet you, Violet.”

They chatted for a time about innocuous topics, Sherlock swaying absently. It was a movement John theorized was reflexive in all parents; the moment they had a weight settled on their hip, it triggered an automatic response to rock and soothe. It was effective, too. Within half an hour Violet had fallen asleep again, and Sherlock excused himself to put her back in his room.

Once Violet had been settled again in his bed, he came out into the main room and stared down his brother.

“Now, explain to me,” he said quietly, “how you _lost_ her father.”

“Only temporarily,” Mycroft said. “I admit, how he came to be in London when he started out in Norfolk remains a mystery. But we now know where he is.”

“What? Where?” Sherlock demanded. _“Mycroft.”_

“Sherlock,” Lestrade stepped in. Sherlock whirled around, looking startled, as though he had quite forgotten there were others in the room. 

“What’s happened to Victor?” he asked. 

“He’s alive, and we know where he is,” Lestrade said quickly, holding up a hand. “It’s just - we can’t get to him yet. He’s trapped.”

“What do you mean, trapped?”

“He’s in the basement of an abandoned warehouse about ten minutes from here,” Lestrade said. He glared pointedly at Mycroft. “God only knows what he was doing there in the first place, but I can tell you that foul play was involved in his being trapped. Someone set off a series of explosives and brought the whole building down while Victor was still in it, Sherlock. We can’t get to him. We’re trying to work our way through the rubble right now, but it’s slow-going.”

Sherlock stared at him for a beat, dumbfounded, and then turned to Mycroft.

“What the _hell_ did you do?” he hissed. “Someone _blew up a building_ just to try to kill him? What have you got him into now?”

“I can’t reveal the details of Mr Trevor’s mission,” Mycroft said calmly. 

“The hell you can’t!” Sherlock snapped, but he turned back to Lestrade. Forcing calm into his voice, he asked, “How do you know he’s still alive?”

“We threaded an audio line through the rubble and a small hole in the ceiling of the basement. We can hear him breathing. He’s probably just been knocked unconscious. Half the basement collapsed as well, and we don’t know the extent of his injuries, but he’s still alive. When we wakes up, we’ll be able to communicate with him.”

Sherlock glanced between Lestrade and Mycroft. 

“That’s it?” he asked finally. Mycroft inclined his head.

“Apologies, brother, but I can’t reveal anything more than that. His mission was a very delicate one. I’m taking a very big risk by even informing you of his predicament.”

“Predicament -” Sherlock sputtered. His face flushed red in anger. “If Violet is left with only one parent at the end of this, Mycroft, it’s on _your_ head, and you can be assured that I will never forgive you for it.”

Mycroft’s mouth tightened, the only outward sign he gave that the words affected him.

“Be that as it may,” he said, “Victor’s actions helped ensure the safety of our citizens and the well-being of our government. That would make a potential sacrifice on his part more than worth it. _You_ should know that only too well.”

Sherlock’s nostrils flared.

“I did,” he growled, “what I had to do in order to protect those closest to me. I had _no choice_ but to fall.”

“I’m not implying that you did.” Mycroft’s eyes turned cold. “But the next time you take issue with Victor’s choice of career, let me remind you that you engaged the world’s most dangerous criminal mastermind for fun - and your daughter paid the price for it. She thought you were dead for a year, Sherlock, and I couldn’t tell her differently. Bear that in mind before you imply that Victor was being needlessly reckless. I rather think it’s the other way around.”

“Right, that’s enough,” Lestrade said firmly to Mycroft. He seized Sherlock by the elbow to keep him from going after his brother. “Get out, Mr Holmes.”

“Now,” John said when Mycroft didn’t move, “or I’ll throw you out myself.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Mycroft murmured to him, but he left anyway of his own accord, and under his own power. When he had gone, Lestrade took Sherlock by the shoulders and forced him to meet his gaze.

“We’re going to get Victor out of this,” he said firmly, “and we’ll bring him home to Violet. I promise, lad.”

Sherlock drew a deep, calming breath through his nose. 

“I always knew there was a reason why you were her favourite uncle,” he said finally.

“I’d like to think I come out ahead of that git anyway just because I’m, well, _nicer_.” Lestrade gave his shoulder a squeeze and then dropped his hands.

Sherlock snorted and passed a hand over his face. Now that Mycroft was gone, his anger seemed to have melted away, only to be replaced by palpable concern. He also looked dazed and more than a little lost. 

“I don’t have anything for her here,” Sherlock said after a moment spent gazing blankly at them both. “I never thought - she never visits here. It didn’t occur to me -”

“Mycroft made sure she brought enough from home for a lengthy stay. Her suitcase is in your wardrobe,” Lestrade said. He gave a small smile. “And I bought milk.”

Sherlock gave a weak chuckle.

“What do we do from here?” John asked. He looked at Lestrade. “You say you’ve got an audio line open to him.”

“Yeah, but he’s still out. And for God only knows how long. We don’t know the extent of his injuries.” Lestrade turned to Sherlock. “Look, I’ve got to get back to the Yard. I’ll call the moment we have something.”

“We’ll come with you,” Sherlock said, moving for his coat, but Lestrade grabbed his elbow to stop him.

“No,” he said firmly. “You need to stay here, with Violet. There’s nothing you can do from the Yard, and unless you know how to make rubble disappear, there’s nothing you can do at the warehouse, either.”

“Can you let us know when he wakes up, at least?” John stepped in, sensing from the way that Sherlock’s jaw clenched that he was on the verge of releasing a brand-new tirade on Lestrade. 

“You’ll be my first call,” Lestrade said to Sherlock, who nodded his thanks. “Get some sleep. We’ll be in touch.”

The silence that settled on the flat in the wake of Lestrade’s departure was as thick as the one that filled the cab on their way home earlier that night. This time, however, the air was heavy not with anger, but with everything that went--and had gone--unsaid.

“So,” John said finally, unable to bear it any longer. “His name is Victor.”

Sherlock stared at him for a long minute, his face unreadable. Then, he pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and flipped it open. He slid out a picture that had been tucked into one of the pockets and handed it wordlessly to John. 

The child John recognised instantly, for even though she was a baby in the image, her cerulean eyes and sharp nose were unmistakable. The man holding Violet was gazing down at her while he fed her a bottle, and she was looking back at him in wide-eyed wonder. He was as different from Sherlock in appearance as one could get. Classically handsome, he had a strong jaw and symmetrical features, and his eyes were an unassuming shade of blue. His brown hair had been swept off his forehead, and a day’s worth of stubble shadowed his jaw. The deep bruises under his eyes and questionable stains on his t-shirt marked him as a new parent, while the joy in his smile marked him as the father of the baby he was holding. 

“Victor Trevor,” Sherlock said after a moment. John handed the picture back to him, and he tucked it away again. “We met at university. I was seventeen, and at the time he was the most brilliant man I’d ever met. Still is, in fact.”

He went into the kitchen, where he kept a stash of cigarettes in the drawer that contained his microscope slides. John grabbed a beer while Sherlock lit his cigarette, and they stood there in silence for a time. Sherlock cracked open the tiny window so that the smell wouldn’t disturb Violet, and John privately decided that Mycroft didn’t need to know about this particular slip-up.

“What’s he do?”

“Officially? He’s a physicist, and he worked for an aerospace company while we were still together.”

“In addition to working for Mycroft,” John said after a while. Sherlock’s face darkened.

“Yes,” he said bitterly. “ _That_ was a job he worked on the side. Mycroft found him to be highly competent and very useful for a variety of missions. Victor used to travel all around the world on Mycroft’s orders. But he cut back on that work when Violet was born, and when we... separated, he was supposed to have given it up altogether.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” John asked quietly. “A divorce is a hard thing, I get that, but it’s not something to be ashamed of -”

“I’m not ashamed,” Sherlock said sharply. “Not of them. Never of them.”

“But?”

Sherlock sighed and took a deep pull on his cigarette. 

“Lestrade knows about us because I started working for the Yard prior to the divorce. His whole team knows, for that matter, as do Molly and Angelo. My association with Mrs Hudson predates Violet, so she knows as well. But you were the one person who didn’t know simply because of when we met. It was... refreshing.”

John nodded to himself. He could understand that, he supposed, and Sherlock was a private man to begin with. He took a long swallow of beer, and then asked, “How often do you get to see her?”

Sherlock shrugged, but his face shuttered. “Victor visits the country three times a year. He leaves Violet with my mother, and I usually spend a few days at the estate with her.”

John gave a huff of laughter.

“I saw, but I didn’t observe,” he muttered. “I always wondered why you took so many weekend trips to that house when you hate the place so much. And the Christmas dinners...”

Sherlock gave a quick, wry smile.

“I only tolerate those because Violet will be there.”

“So you haven’t seen Victor in a while.”

Sherlock quickly sobered, and he shook his head.

“No. Not since my return.”

“Did he know you were alive?” John asked. He tried to keep the warning out of his tone, but his hand tightened around his beer and Sherlock undoubtedly noticed. 

“No,” Sherlock said, and John breathed a silent, selfish sigh of relief. “But only because I didn’t want to draw the attention of Moriarty’s men to them. Moriarty was effective, but short sighted. He only targeted people in my life who were also close enough in proximity to make a point. It didn’t occur to him that the most important person in my life was thousands of miles away. Or he simply didn’t care; I’m not sure.”

“It must be difficult,” John said cautiously, “to have a child with someone you no longer get along with.”

Sherlock gave him a blank look, and then his brows furrowed.

“I assure you, John, nothing could be further from the truth,” he said, sounding almost puzzled. “Victor and I - well, there’s no one on this planet I trust more. Oh, don’t give me that look, I trust you as well. It’s just different, with Victor. You have Mary, surely you understand the difference. And... well.”

Sherlock dropped his eyes to his cigarette, which had largely burned away. He stubbed it out on the edge of the sink before disposing of it. 

“I miss him terribly,” he said finally, quietly. “I try not to think about it, because if I’m not careful I’m afraid it will consume me.”

“Does he know?” John asked softly. 

Sherlock’s brow furrowed, as though the question confused him. “Of course. He feels the same.”

John couldn’t help himself. 

“Then why -”

Sherlock shook his head. 

“It wasn’t enough,” he said simply. “We had our share of problems, John, and there were gulfs between us that simply couldn’t be bridged. For some things, love wasn’t enough.”

Sherlock shook his head and cleared his throat. He straightened, ran a hand through his hair, and cracked his neck. 

“If you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I’m going to get some sleep before Violet wakes up at six wanting breakfast. You’re staying here?”

“Mary’s working late tonight; figured I would,” John said. He had a habit of staying at Baker Street whenever Mary was working or out of town. He cracked a tentative smile. “Besides, there’s no way I’m passing up a chance to see you babysit.”

\----

Sherlock slept on the sofa that night while Violet slumbered in his room. He was pulled out of sleep every hour due to his restless thoughts and the worry that ate away at his insides, and finally gave up on further sleep at four. He lay on the sofa, an arm over his eyes, listening to the flat creak and pop around him. 

He shouldn’t have felt so thrown by the night’s revelations. Of course Victor wouldn’t have given up his work; it was as much his life as Sherlock’s consulting was his own. It was foolish to think he could set it aside so easily.

But it had always been a point of contention between them. Sherlock’s consulting, while dangerous at times, was relatively harmless when compared to Victor’s job. The danger was of his own making. Victor’s work, on the other hand, involved secret missions to far corners of the globe or undercover work that lasted for weeks at a time. He was actively killing and trying not to be killed in return, and more than once a price had been put on his head. Before Moriarty, no one had ever actually sought Sherlock out personally and tried to do him harm. But someone, it seemed, was always after Victor.

That was bad enough. But it could quickly spiral, and if it did, Violet was directly in the line of fire. 

_ It must be difficult to have a child with someone you no longer get along with. _

On the eve of Sherlock’s return to England, his brother had sent a plane for Victor and Violet, spiriting them away on a moment’s notice to the Holmes family estate. 

It was the first time he and Victor had been in the same room since Violet’s fifth birthday two years prior. Victor, seemingly, hadn’t aged a day. Sherlock knew that he had gained five years on his face in just one. And Violet - oh, she had been much too big. 

Victor had kissed him, punched him, and hugged him, in precisely that order. Violet had sobbed and laughed and sobbed some more, and Sherlock didn’t think he was ever going to be able to let her go. But he had, three days later. He said goodbye to them in the shadowed foyer of his childhood home, and he didn’t see Violet again until Christmas.

And Victor hadn’t spoken to him since that day, much less agreed to be in the same room with him. Their communication was limited to emails, and the occasional message from Mycroft. Their reunion that hot summer weekend had been tinged with unreality, and for a brief moment it was as though Violet was two again, and their marriage was whole. But then Victor had seen the track marks on his arms, evidence of a year that had been less than kind to Sherlock, and the flickering hope that they might be able to rebuild again was snuffed out.

Victor was the best thing ever to happen to him. But all the good times couldn’t make up for the bad, and sometimes love just wasn’t enough.

Sherlock heard his bedroom door creak open, and then the soft slap of tiny bare feet on the lino in the kitchen. Violet paused by the sofa.

“Dad?” she asked tentatively, her voice so soft it was nearly inaudible. She had never come up with two distinct names that she used to refer to her parents. The parent who was present was always _Dad_ , and the absent parent—or the one she was referring to—tended to be _Daddy._

“I’m awake,” he murmured, lifting his arm off his eyes. “What is it, Violet?”

He didn’t need an answer and didn’t expect one. The question was invitation enough, and Violet crawled up onto the sofa, settling down on the thin strip of cushion that was left when Sherlock slid over to make room. He pulled the blanket off his legs and wrapped it around Violet instead, and she cuddled up against him. With her head on his chest, her feet reached almost down to his knees. 

She hadn’t been this tall at Christmas. 

“Do you think Daddy’s scared?” Violet asked softly. Sherlock snorted.

“Your father is the bravest man I know,” he said with sincerity. Victor was also the most infuriating, but Sherlock suspected that Violet didn’t need to know that right now. “What are you doing awake?”

“I can’t sleep,” Violet whispered, looking up at him.

“Ah. Well, neither can I.” Sherlock rubbed her back absently, and she settled her head on his shoulder again. 

“Daddy usually reads me a story when I can’t sleep.”

“I don’t have any stories here.”

Violet began to pick at a loose thread on his shirt.

“He reads me Doctor Watson’s stories. My favorite is the case of the Aluminum Crutch.”

“He does not.”

Violet nodded vigorously. 

“He _does_. And did you _really_ meet a headless ghost? Daddy says ghosts aren’t real.”

“They aren’t,” Sherlock said firmly. “Doctor Watson simply enjoys going on flights of fancy.”

“What’re those?”

“Never mind.” Sherlock ran a hand through Violet’s hair. He had thought she’d been exaggerating earlier when she said she knew all of John’s stories, but evidently that was not the case. 

It was one more thing to take up with Victor once they got him out of this sorry mess, right after Sherlock took him to task for going on another one of Mycroft’s missions _and_ getting himself blown up.

That is, _if_ they ever got Victor out of this mess. 

“Violet,” Sherlock said, trying to shake the thought from his mind, “did your dad ever tell you the story about the comic book murders?”

She lifted her head to look at him, eyes wide with excitement.

_ “No,”  _ she said. “That sounds _cool.”_

Sherlock laughed, the first time he had managed to do so this evening, and pulled her against his chest again.

She fell asleep halfway through the story. Sherlock followed not long after, and would probably have slept for half the morning if not for the text from Lestrade that woke him at seven.

_ He’s waking up _ . 

\-----

Lestrade had set up a makeshift command center in one of the conference rooms at the Yard. A computer and audio equipment had been brought in, and his team had been using them to monitor both the rescue efforts and Victor’s condition. 

“They’re still hours away from reaching him,” Lestrade said quietly, bringing John and Sherlock up to speed while the rest of his team bustled around them. “And before you ask, no, we haven’t got any leads on who might have done this. Though I suspect that’s a result of your brother’s meddling, Sherlock. He’s been stonewalling our investigation at every turn. But finding out who did this won’t make that rubble move any quicker, so I’m inclined to let it go for the moment.”

Sherlock shot a glance to the other side of the room, where Mycroft was milling in a corner.

“Did you call him here?”

Lestrade looked offended.

“God, no,” he said emphatically. “Don’t ask me how he found out; he just showed up here.”

“Sounds like him,” John muttered. “Has Victor said anything yet?”

Lestrade shook his head.

“Nothing of importance. He’s still very groggy; all we’ve managed are a few hellos. I don’t think his situation has quite registered with him yet. I thought a familiar voice might help.”

He looked pointedly at Sherlock, who glanced away uneasily.

“We don’t talk,” he said simply. 

“I know,” Lestrade said gently. “I don’t think he’ll care about that at the moment, do you?”

“You’d be surprised how long that man can hold a grudge.”

“Sir!” Donovan called suddenly. The noise in the room ceased altogether, and Lestrade hurried back over to her side. She had been manning the microphone, and was the first person to make contact with Victor earlier. “I think he’s - hello?”

There was a pause, and then - 

“Who’s there?”

Everyone looked at Sherlock. He shifted, for the first time in his life uncomfortable with the attention suddenly being on him. 

“Victor,” he said quietly. “It’s me.”

There was silence on the other end for half a minute. It felt like an eternity.

“Sherlock,” Victor said finally. “What’s going on?”

Sherlock took a moment just for breathing. It had been so long since he’d heard Victor’s voice. Victor always dropped Violet off with Sherlock’s mother on their thrice-yearly trips to England and disappeared for the weekend so Sherlock could have some uninterrupted time with his daughter--and so that Victor wouldn’t have to be in the same room with him. They didn’t even speak by phone anymore, confining their conversations to brisk emails that talked only about Violet and said nothing about their own lives. 

“It’s... complicated,” he said at last. “What do you remember?”

“Not much,” Victor said, but his voice was suddenly guarded. Sherlock blew out a frustrated breath.

“This is no time to be keeping my brother’s secrets,” he said irritably. “What were you doing in there? What _happened_?”

“It’s all right, Mr Trevor,” Mycroft said, stepping in. Sherlock wanted to punch him. “You can divulge that much.”

“There isn’t much to say,” Victor admitted. “I thought I heard a sound in the basement of this building, so I went to investigate. The next thing I know, I’m talking to - well. Whoever you all are. What the hell is going on?”

“You’re trapped in the basement of a warehouse,” Sherlock told him. “I don’t know why you were there in the first place, but when you went into the basement, someone set off a series of explosives that brought the entire building down on top of you. There are people working to get to you, but it’s going to take a while. You’re talking to Lestrade’s team. We’re at the Yard.”

Victor’s response was a long time in coming. 

“I see,” he said slowly. “So... someone blew up this building?”

“Just to get to you, yes.”

“Mr Trevor, how are you feeling?” John stepped in. His brow had furrowed suddenly, and there was an apprehensive edge to his voice.

Everyone turned to look at him. Sherlock scowled.

“This is hardly the time for you to show off your skills,” he hissed. “And it’s a waste of air -”

“Mr Trevor, this is John Watson,” John said, talking over Sherlock and cutting him off. “I’m a physician. I need to know how you’re feeling right now.”

There was silence for a moment. 

“Head hurts like a bitch,” Victor said finally. “I think I got hit with something.”

“I’m not surprised.” John folded his arms across his chest. “But that’s not all.”

“No,” Victor said at length. “There’s also nausea, dizziness, and a ringing in my ears. And I don’t entirely remember what happened immediately before the explosion.”

“You’re also experiencing some mild confusion, from what I can tell.” John looked at the assembled team. “It sounds like he’s got a concussion, and a pretty bad one, too. Which means that we can’t let him fall asleep.”

Lestrade cursed quietly, and Sherlock felt a knot form in his chest.

“Did you hear that, Victor?” Lestrade asked finally.

“I did.”

“Right, then, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re all going to take shifts, every couple of hours, until we get you out of there. People, I want you to keep him awake. That means you talk, you keep him _engaged_ , and you don’t let him fall asleep. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir,” the rest of his team chorused. 

“Good. And as for you, Victor, you are _not allowed_ to fall asleep. Is _that_ understood?”

There was a note of amusement in Victor’s voice when he answered. 

“Understood, Greg.”

“Good. Donovan, you’ve got the first shift. Everyone else, back to work.”

Mycroft made his farewells out in the corridor and left the Yard. Lestrade turned to John.

“I can’t really spare many people for this,” he said quietly. “I’ll have Donovan give it a go, and then Ricky and Anderson. Can you give us a hand? Fill in in case things need to be shuffled around; take a shift here and there.”

“Of course,” John said, and Lestrade nodded his thanks.

“Now, Sherlock -”

“I need to be at Baker Street,” Sherlock said quietly, before Lestrade could order him away. “I know. You’ll call.”

Lestrade nodded. 

“The moment we have anything.”


	2. Chapter 2

The conference room was too quiet.

Sally had never noticed it before, but then, she had never had reason to be in here alone. Even when they were going over evidence for a case, for hours and hours on end, someone was always at her side and there was always some kind of noise; some sort of distraction.

But when the rest of her teammates filed out and shut the door, she realised just how silent this room could be. 

“Are you still there?”

Sally started, and was momentarily thankful that she was relatively alone.

“I am,” she said quickly, turning to the audio controls. “Sorry. I’m just adjusting your end of the line. We’re picking up a lot of extra static... there. Can you still hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Sally drew a deep breath. “Look, you probably don’t remember me -” 

Trevor cut her off. 

“Sally Donovan, the one person on Lestrade’s team who wasn’t afraid to give Sherlock exactly what he deserved. Of course I remember you. How’ve you been, Sergeant?”

They chatted for a while. Neither having much in common, nor really any reason for contact, there was a lot of ground to cover. It was disconcerting to talk to Trevor, because while he possessed the same observational skills that Holmes did, he never made a big show of his deductions or conclusions. In fact, it was as though he didn’t ever consciously realise he was doing it, but he would let slip something in the conversation now and again that he had to have figured out on his own, because she hadn’t told him. Like the fact that her mother had been recently diagnosed with cancer, or that she was tentatively dating a fellow sergeant from a different department.

But after a while their conversational topics began to run thin, and it was getting more difficult to keep Trevor engaged.

“Right, you’re going to help me with this crossword,” Sally said at last, grabbing the day’s paper off the table and flipping to the appropriate page. “Let’s see... okay. Four letters, this is the ninth most massive body in the solar system.”

“Eris,” Trevor said promptly.

“Show-off,” Sally muttered, marking down the answer. “Right, I’m not giving you letters this time, just the clue. Okay? This element’s atomic number is six.”

“Carbon.”

“The youngest person to receive a Nobel Prize.”

“Lawrence Bragg.”

They continued in this vein for some time, and they polished off the crossword in less than half an hour. Sally dashed off to find an older paper, and in this manner was able to keep Victor awake and talking until Anderson took over for her a couple of hours later.

\----

John took over after Donovan and Anderson had both taken a couple of hours each talking to Victor. By now, nearly six hours had passed since Victor first regained consciousness, and it was starting to make itself apparent in his worn voice. His words were starting to sound rough around the edges, and every once in a while they cracked.

They stuck to light topics. John had a million questions he wanted to ask, but if even Sherlock was reserved about that portion of his life, it probably wasn’t best to go running to his former partner for information.

“I see from your blog you’re a rugby man,” Victor said at one point. “How long have you been playing?”

Victor, it turned out, had played the sport while in university, and they traded stories for the better part of an hour. 

“Are you married, John?” Victor asked at last. John paused in stirring his third cup of coffee, wondering if this was how they were going to broach the subject of Victor's past with Sherlock.

“Yes. Her name is Mary.”

“How long?”

“Six months.” It had been a winter wedding. He could still picture the snowflakes that dotted Mary’s dark hair, and how the cold had tinged her cheeks and nose red. She had been stunning, and he had been ecstatic. 

Victor gave a soft laugh.

“Practically newlyweds, then. That’s wonderful. Do you have kids?”

“Not yet. We’d like them, though, someday.”

“Violet’s the best thing that ever happened to me,” Victor said. “And the most terrifying.”

John chuckled.

“I can only imagine. And since you brought it up, I have to ask: how on Earth did you persuade Sherlock to have a kid?”

Victor laughed.

“You’d be surprised, John. He’s actually decent with children, and rather likes them—to a point. He admires their curiosity. I think he thought of Violet as a kind of unprecedented experiment, one he could study for the rest of his life.” Victor’s smile was apparent in his voice. “Only trouble was, somewhere along the way he fell in love with the test subject. Don’t think that’s really allowed, do you?”

Before John could answer, there was a knock on the door. He turned in his seat, and watched as Sherlock stepped into the room. 

“Lestrade required Ricky’s help, and the rest of his team is occupied,” he said in clarification. He looked supremely uncomfortable, and John knew that Sherlock hadn’t fabricated the situation in order to get away from Baker Street. He genuinely did not want to be here. 

“Right, well, he’s all yours,” John said, tossing his styrofoam cup in the nearest bin and getting to his feet. “Victor, I’m off. I’ll be back later on. You hang in there, hear me?”

“Loud and clear.”

 

The silence left behind in the wake of John’s departure was deafening. Sherlock could feel the blood pounding in his ears, and his heart felt as though it was trying to break free of his chest. He hadn’t been this on edge since - 

\- well. Since the day Violet was born. 

“Sherlock?” Victor ventured finally.

“I’m here.” Sherlock settled in the chair with his coffee in hand. He took a tentative sip and glanced at one of the computer monitors. “It appears as though they’re still several hours from breaking through to you, provided that the structural integrity of the basement’s ceiling holds up.”

“Boy, you’re a joy to talk to.”

Sherlock paused, replaying his last sentence in his head.

“Apologies,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean - well. Are you feeling all right?”

“No worse,” Victor said.

“But no better,” Sherlock finished.

“I’m unlikely to feel better,” Victor pointed out. “So feeling no worse is a good thing. To be perfectly honest...”

He trailed off. 

“What?” Sherlock prompted. 

“Nothing,” Victor said finally. “It’s just... it’s good to hear your voice. Makes me feel a bit better about this whole thing.”

Sherlock took a long swallow of his coffee, not knowing how to respond at first. But Victor was the one person on this planet who could always tell when he was lying, and there was no point in trying to pretend that Victor’s voice wasn’t the best thing he’d heard in days.

“It’s good to talk to you,” he said at last. Every now and again Sherlock could glean something about Victor’s life from an offhand comment in an email or from something his own mother said, but those were wholly inadequate compared to actually talking to Victor.

“How’s our girl?”

Sherlock debated a number of responses before settling on, “Fine.”

“Really?” Victor sounded dubious.

“She’s scared,” Sherlock said after a moment. “And I’m - inadequate. I can’t comfort her when I don’t even know if -”

He broke off.

“She’s with Mrs Hudson right now,” he continued at length. 

“She needs you.”

“She needs what I can’t give.”

“You’re her father. That’s all she requires right now.”

“I’m not the parent she wants.”

To his surprise, Victor gave a sharp bark of laughter. 

“Oh, don’t give me that. I’m the dad who makes her go to bed on time and sends her to school and tells her she needs to finish her dinner. You’re the dad who’s off halfway around the world, having grand adventures and solving mysteries. Believe me, you are absolutely the parent that she wants.”

“I’ll be with her when I go home,” Sherlock said. “But I needed -”

He broke off.

“What is it?”

“It’s absurd,” Sherlock said quietly. “When Lestrade called me to take over for John, I wanted nothing to do with this... and at the same time, I couldn’t get here fast enough. The last thing I wanted was to talk to you, and yet I also couldn’t think of anything I wanted more. It doesn’t make sense.”

Victor gave a soft huff of laughter. 

“I’m a spy and you’re a consulting detective. When have we ever made sense?”

Sherlock felt the beginnings of a weak smile on his face, but it faded quickly.

“How did this happen, Victor?” he asked. “You told me you gave up the work.”

“You told me you gave up the drugs,” Victor countered. He sighed. “We both have our vices, Sherlock. There’s no use in pretending otherwise.”

Sherlock shook his head. They had had this argument far too many times over the years; there really was no use in rehashing it right now.

“There’s a hitch in your chest every time you breathe,” Sherlock said, trying to focus on the present as thoughts of their past threatened to invade. “It wasn’t just your head you hit, was it?”

Victor sighed. His breath caught in his chest again, and Sherlock’s heart ached.

“No. When that beam came down on me, it did a number on my ribs, too. And I landed wrong on my wrist. It’s nothing I can’t handle, but it’s damned annoying.”  There was a soft groan over the line, probably from Victor adjusting his position and accidentally jostling his injuries. “But none of that is worth worrying about right now. It all becomes moot if they aren’t able to break through the rubble soon, anyway.”

“Don’t say that,” Sherlock said quietly. “They’ll get to you in time.”

“It’s not likely,” Victor said. “And you aren’t one to tell yourself one thing when the facts clearly point to a different conclusion.”

“I think you’ll find, Victor, that I was never very rational when it came to you.”

Victor was quiet for a long time.

“Tell me something, Sherlock,” he said at last. “Did you ever give up the drugs?”

Sherlock swallowed. “Yes.”

“When was your last hit?”

“Eighteen months ago,” Sherlock said softly. “I was in Germany. I haven’t touched anything since my return.”

“I’m glad,” Victor said, and he sounded both relieved and immeasurably sad. It had come far too late for them, and Sherlock lived with that every day. “And you’ve been well?”

Sherlock shrugged, caught himself, and then said, “Yes.”

“It must be strange, with John gone.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. Why everyone thought he was going to go to pieces without John, he would never know. John’s absence was noticeable, and rather inconvenient when there was a case to investigate, but not unbearable. It was certainly nothing compared to the ache of the years that followed his divorce.

Victor’s absence still pained him.  
                                                                                                                                                                                   
“I lived by myself for three years after you left,” he said finally. “I’ll manage.”

There was a soft knock on the door. Sherlock turned, and Lestrade stuck his head in the room. 

“Ready?” he asked. Sherlock opened his mouth to say _no_ \--he’d never be ready to say goodbye, he hadn’t been ready the first time around--but Victor cut off his protest before he could even give it.

“Go home, Sherlock. Give Violet a kiss for me.”

“I’ll be back,” Sherlock promised, his mouth dry. Victor’s voice cracked when he answered.

“I’m counting on it.”

\----

Sherlock stopped by Mrs Hudson’s in order to pick up Violet upon his return from the Yard.

“She’s asleep, dear,” Mrs Hudson said softly, pointing into her main room, where Violet was slumbering on the flower-patterned sofa. “Is there any news?”

Sherlock filled her in quietly, and she steered him into a chair in the kitchen before bringing him a cup of tea. 

“I bet it was good to talk to him,” she said, patting his shoulder. Sherlock gave a weak smile.

“It’d have been better if he wasn’t buried under tons of rubble,” he said dryly. And then he sobered. “Martha, I don’t think he’s going to get out of this one.”

Mrs Hudson looked stricken. 

“Don’t say that, dear,” she said. “He’s got himself out of tight spots before. Remember Brazil?”

Sherlock shuddered. He tried not to think of Brazil whenever possible.

“Oh!” Mrs Hudson said abruptly, as though she just remembered something. “Sit there for a moment, dear, I have something for you. Now if I can only remember where I put it...”

She disappeared into her bedroom. Sherlock shook his head, finished off the tea, and moved into the main room.

Violet only took up a small portion of the sofa, and she had curled herself, cat-like, into a tight ball in the center of one of the cushions. Mrs Hudson had tucked a blue blanket around her small frame, and Sherlock remembered with a pang the similar blanket that had been Violet’s favourite as a baby, the one they swaddled her in and the one thing she had retained as she moved from infancy to toddlerhood. He wondered if Victor had kept it. Some of his favourite memories from Violet’s infancy involved watching Victor rock her to sleep in that obnoxious, oversized rocking chair his mother had gifted them, Violet wrapped in blue and snug in his strong arms.

“Violet,” he whispered, laying a hand on her shoulder. He squeezed gently, and the touch roused her. “Violet, come on. It’s time to wake up. We need to go home - er, back to my flat.”

She sat up, the blanket falling away as she rubbed her fists sleepily against her eyes. 

“Daddy?” she whispered. Sherlock sat on the sofa and gathered her into his lap. 

“He says hello,” he said quietly, cradling her against his chest. “He says that he loves you, and not to be scared because Uncle Greg’s going to find him.”

“I wanna talk to him,” Violet said quietly. Sherlock swallowed.

“Maybe tomorrow,” he said. 

He hadn’t truly realised how late it was until he noticed that Violet was falling asleep again, which was unusual for her after a nap. A glance at the clock on a bookshelf told him it was nearly midnight, which explained things. He grabbed the blue blanket and wrapped it around Violet again. The warm weight of his daughter against his chest and the feel of the fleece against his arms was achingly familiar, and he was sharply reminded of how he missed cradling his infant girl.

“Here we are,” Mrs Hudson announced, coming back into the main room. She was carrying a large, leather-bound tome, and she set it next to Sherlock on the sofa before sitting in a nearby armchair. 

Sherlock recognised the cover instantly.

“Martha...” he trailed off. “Where did you get this?”

“You threw it out,” she said simply. “Don’t think I don’t know you, Sherlock Holmes. That’s how you deal with difficult situations. You erase them. You try to forget about them. I had a feeling you would try to throw away those pictures, so I saved them.”

Sherlock twisted on the sofa, still holding Violet against his chest with one arm, and opened the album. 

The pictures were all of him and Victor--he could never bring himself to dispose of pictures of Violet--and mostly from their early days. They had never really been ones who put much stock in sentiment or mementos, but invariably someone would snap a picture at university with them in it, and Victor had taken it upon himself to finally compile the album in the months before Violet was born. There were pictures from university events, Holmes family dinners, and garden parties at the Trevor estate. The album culminated in their quiet marriage ceremony, which predated Violet by three years. 

Sherlock had quite forgotten the joy in those years. The memory of how it had all soured and ended overrode the happiness at the beginning.

“She might like them, for when she’s older,” Mrs Hudson pressed. “And especially if, Heaven forbid, this situation doesn’t have a happy ending.”

Sherlock had always admired that about Mrs Hudson. She was straightforward and blunt, and practical above all else. He nodded.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. He rose, lifting Violet with him, and picked up the album with his free hand. “I’ll be sure to show it to her in the morning.”

\----

By the time John took over for Lestrade in the hours after midnight, it was clear that Victor was fading quickly. His responses were slow, if he gave them at all, and his confusion was starting to become apparent. 

John hadn’t intended to bring up Sherlock, but eventually he found himself at an absolute loss and running out of conversational topics. He needed to keep Victor engaged, and the only way he was going to do that was by bringing up the past.

“Sherlock never mentioned you,” he said. “Either of you.”

Victor was slow in responding. When he finally spoke, he didn’t sound surprised.

“Those weren’t happy years, John. It wasn’t a good marriage,” he said softly. “Violet was about the only good thing that came of it, in fact. We named her after his mother. Have you met her?”

John shook his head.

“No.”

“Fearsome woman,” Victor continued, “but kind--once you got to know her, at least.”

“What are they like, his parents?”

“You mean, what kind of people could have spawned Sherlock and Mycroft?” Victor asked. There was an unexpected smile in his voice. “They’re quite ordinary, actually. The father’s been dead a few years now, but he was a decent man. Hardworking. Never knew quite what to make of his genius boys. I don’t think Violet does either, most days, but she saw them through adolescence. They’re good men, John, and it’s largely thanks to her.”

“Victor,” John said finally, unable to help himself, “look, far be it from me to intrude or comment on another man’s relationship, but hearing you talk... God, you sound so fond of him. Of Sherlock.”

“I am,” Victor said simply. “Don’t get me wrong, there’s no one else on the planet who infuriates me the way he does, but the marriage ended for other reasons. Love was never our problem, John.”

That much was glaringly obvious to John, but it didn’t allow him to make any more sense of the situation. The two men were both painfully, stupidly in love with one another, and they weren’t bothering to hide it, either. But they also lived a world apart, and it made no sense. What could have been so destructive--so devastating--that it drove a wedge between two people who were absolutely suited for one another?

More importantly, what was still keeping them apart?

Unless Victor suspected…

“I never slept with him,” John blurted. 

To his absolute surprise, Victor laughed. It was warm and cheerful, and didn’t sound like it should belong to a man who was currently buried under tons of rubble and suffering a potentially fatal head wound.

“God, John, I know that!” he said amid his chuckles. “Even if you weren’t straight, you’re certainly not his type.”

“I - wait, he has a _type?”_

“He does.”

“And what, pray tell, would that be?”

“Tall men, for one,” said a voice behind him, and John spun his chair around. He cocked an eyebrow at Sherlock to show that he was unimpressed at the dramatic entrance. “Dark hair, for another. Broad shoulders. Sorry, John, I’m afraid that you don’t quite measure up.”

“Well, that’s a relief.” John pushed himself out of the chair and Sherlock took his spot. “Good talking to you, Victor. Good luck with this one.”

“I’ve been dealing with him since I was eighteen, John. I think I’ve learned a few tricks by now. Good night.”

 

“It’s morning, actually,” Sherlock corrected when John had gone. He heard Victor stifle a yawn.

“My mistake. S’hard to tell down here, needless to say.” Victor hesitated. “Were you listening for long?”

Sherlock propped his legs up on the table and tilted his chair back. 

“You mean, was I around to hear you confess your unending love for me?”

“Arse.”

Sherlock snorted, and then quickly sobered.

“You’re right, though,” he mused. “That wasn’t ever really our problem, was it?”

“No,” Victor said. He sounded exhausted, and his words were faint. “Don’t think it ever will be.”

There hadn’t been one last explosive fight on their final night together, or anything dramatic that precipitated Victor’s leaving. Violet had been two then, and it had happened quietly. It was barely a whimper; less than a blip on the radar. They had had all their fights, their nights spent apart and days spent crashing back together. They always came back together, in the end. It had taken Victor, who was always the stronger of the two, to finally make the move that sounded the death knell for their marriage. He had moved Violet to the other side of the globe, as far away from Sherlock’s gravitational pull as he could get, for as long as they were in the vicinity of one another things would never change. 

Love was never their problem.

Sherlock realised then that he had been quiet for too long, and said, “Victor?”

Silence met his question. Sherlock cursed under his breath.

“Victor,” he said firmly, leaning closer to the microphone. _“Victor.”_

He couldn’t hear anything on the other end, though the computer monitor next to his elbow assured him that the microphone was still picking up Victor’s breathing. Sherlock began to quickly root through the various items that littered the table, shoving aside papers and looking under books until he closed a hand around a tiny, silver object.

Sherlock brought the whistle to his lips and blew, wincing as the shrill sound rattled his eardrums. 

_ “Fuck.”  _ Victor’s response was swift and irritated, and Sherlock breathed a quiet sigh of relief. 

“Don’t do that,” he said sharply. “You _mustn’t_ fall asleep, do you understand me?”

“S’not like I’m doing it to spite you,” Victor muttered. 

“I know.” Sherlock passed a hand over his face, and was startled to discover that small tremors were running through his fingers. Victor’s words were beginning to slur together, and there was a note of grogginess in his voice.

He had imagined Victor’s demise countless times over the years, despite his distaste for dwelling on merely hypothetical situations. For some reason, he had never imagined it would end like this, with Victor so close and so unattainable at the same time. 

But he couldn’t dwell on that right now. Victor needed to keep talking, and Sherlock was running out of ways to distract him. 

“Violet was having trouble sleeping the other night,” he said at last. “She said that you read to her from John’s blog sometimes.”

Victor gave a soft laugh.

“Yeah, she loves it,” he said. “I take out the grue – er…”

“Gruesome,” Sherlock filled in, heart sinking fast.

“Right. Take the gruesome parts out. But she knows all about what you do. You should - you should hear her talk, Sherlock. _My dad is a spy and my other dad is a great detective!_ She lords it over the other kids.”

“I didn’t know.” There was so much he didn’t know about his daughter, and the thought of that made his chest ache. “What’s she like?”

“Violet? You know as well as I, Sherlock. The two of you talk nearly every day.”

Sherlock shook his head. 

“I get incomprehensible emails about ponies and books and her pet rabbit, and a phone call once a week.” He worried a thread on the sleeve of his shirt. “You get to see her grow up. It’s not exactly the same.”

There was a pause.

“What d’you want to know?” Victor asked finally.

“I don’t know. Something. Anything.” Sherlock ran a hand through his hair. _Keep him talking_. “How is she in school?”

“She’s all right,” Victor said, but his tone was carefully guarded now. “Better’n most. Worse than some.”

Sherlock took some moments to puzzle through Victor’s tone.

“You think I’ll hold it against her,” he said in some surprise.

“I think y’won’t know what to do with a child who is – who is ordinary,” Victor said quietly, his voice grave even as he groped for the right words. “You took drugs because the world was too mundane. You spend all your time around dead bodies and call it _fun_. Your child is nothing like that. She’s not brilliant, she’s not wild, she’s just... average.”

“Not to me,” Sherlock said softly. “Never to me.”

He folded his arms on the table and rested his forehead on them. Sleep was tugging heavily on his limbs and mind, but he couldn’t step away now. And he needed to keep Victor talking.

“Does she have many friends?” he asked at last. Victor’s silence was heartbreaking. 

“A few,” he said quietly. “Not many. No one very close. She’s so quiet. I don’t know why.”

Sherlock lifted his head off his arms and reached automatically for the microphone. He brushed his fingers over the grill, the closest he was going to get to reaching out to Victor. His sentences were becoming clipped, and his strained breathing more audible. 

“We’ll figure it out,” Sherlock said at last. “I’m certain of it. Is she happy, at least?”

“Think so,” Victor said. “But she’s so different from you. From both of us. Half the time… can’t even tell what she’s thinking.”

“What does she do for fun?”

For a moment, Victor simply breathed. Sherlock could hear him trying to gather air into his straining lungs, and hated that he was forcing Victor to speak when it was clearly a struggle for him.

_ Keep him talking _ .

“Loves being outside,” Victor said at last, his words slow but steady. He paused for breath after every sentence. “Our neighbors… have a horse. Goes riding. Every weekend. She reads. She’s got – got your curiosity. Your nose… eyes.” Victor was quiet for a moment. “I see _you_ in her. Every day.”

The fragmented sentences from a man whose very intellect rivaled his own was alarming. But Sherlock clamped down on his growing panic and tried to pretend as though nothing was different. 

“She is not biologically related to either of us, Victor. That isn’t possible.” Sherlock cast around for another topic. “Tell me about where you’re living.”

“Sherlock,” Victor sighed. “Y’know I can’t do that.”

“If your concern is safety, I think that’s a moot point right now, don’t you? Someone tried to kill you, Victor, and they wanted to do it so badly that they were willing to bring down an entire building in order to accomplish it. And they might yet succeed.”

“Tell her – tell her I’m sorry.”

Sherlock’s hands tightened into fists.

“You can tell her yourself,” he said sternly, “when you get out of there.”

Victor gave a failed chuckle. 

“Don’t… fool yourself. S’not like you. Damn good chance… won’t be getting out of this. If that happens...  tell her I’m sorry. And she’s the best – damn thing that ever happened…”

“Victor,” Sherlock implored, “don’t.”

“Sherlock -”

_ “No,”  _ Sherlock snapped. “No, stop this. For the love of God, Victor, don’t you _dare_ do this to me. Don’t make me sit through this maudlin display. I said goodbye to you once already, and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do! _I won’t do it again.”_

He sat there for some seconds, blood pounding in his ears and chest heaving as he struggled to bring his breathing under control. He was gripping the arms of his chair so tightly that his knuckles had turned white.

Silence met his words.

“Victor,” Sherlock croaked. “Victor, answer me. Are you still - are you still there? _Dammit.”_

“I’m here,” Victor said quietly. “I’m still here, Sherlock.”

_ “Christ.”  _ Sherlock sagged, burying his face in his hands, trying to gain control of himself again.

For a while, the only sound that filled the room came from the ticking clock on the far wall. 

“We live by… ocean,” Victor said at length, his voice hushed and his sentences short. “By the beach. Violet loves it. Our neighbours… good people. She goes to a good school. Every morning, the sun rises over the water. S’the most spectacular thing I’ve ever seen. Our house is comfortable… quaint… old. Vi loves to explore it.”

He drew a deep, shuddering breath.

“And I go to bed… each night… in a room that’s too quiet, and even though I fill the house with - with trinkets from my travels… still feels too big. Too empty. I can’t - I can’t even begin to describe how much I miss you.”

“You don’t have to,” Sherlock croaked. He’d had to bite the inside of his cheek hard to prevent a noise of despair escaping his throat, and he tasted the sharp tang of blood on his tongue. “I know very well what you mean.”

Victor’s voice was thick when he spoke again, and he forced the sentences out.

“When Mycroft told me you’d died… didn’t know how I’d bear it. It was one thing to live apart from you. It was another to live in a world where you – where you didn’t exist anymore. And when I had to tell Violet...”

Sherlock felt his throat close up, and he had to bite down hard on the inside of his cheek in order to keep his composure. Victor, from the sound of it, was less than successful at that on his part, and his voice shook.

“Had no idea what was coming… when Mycroft called us to the family estate. Really didn’t. And when you - when you walked into that room… thought I’d gone mad.” Victor gave a tremulous laugh. “And I thought that I didn’t really mind all that much, if being mad meant that I could see you again.”

“Victor -”

“I swore… I’d never leave you again. And I broke that promise three days later, because I had to.”

“I know,” Sherlock croaked.

“I’m so sorry,” Victor said brokenly. “I wish things _… different.”_

Sherlock nodded to himself. He wished, too. They had both been too dazzling, too brilliant, and had been helplessly drawn to each other. But the world wasn’t bright enough for Sherlock, and too often in those early days it had been grey and listless. Even though Victor--and later, Violet--staved off the worst of the tedium, sometimes it wasn’t enough, and he’d needed to turn to artificial means. And Victor had been self-destructive in his own right. They both became experts at falling apart together, shattering to pieces bit by bit even as they worked to build up a life and home. 

It had taken Victor leaving for them to become whole, something that Sherlock couldn’t see at the time because he had been blinded by the drugs and the seemingly irrefutable _fact_ that they were supposed to be together. The necessity of their separation hadn’t crossed his mind at the time because the idea of a life where they weren’t together made no sense, and had no bearing in reality.

But they’d now had their time apart, and they’d learned to live without each other even though that life had been less than complete. 

And now... now it was time to come home.


	3. Chapter 3

John came to take over for Sherlock late in the morning, but Victor’s condition was deteriorating rapidly and Sherlock wasn’t about to be pulled from the room.

“How are you feeling, Victor?” John asked, handing Sherlock a cup of coffee and squeezing his shoulder.

“M’fine,” Victor answered quietly. He sounded slightly dazed. “Got a headache.”

“I know. We’ll take care of that soon.” John sat down and passed a hand over his face. “I was watching Violet for a few hours. She’s a sweet kid. Quite a talker, though, once you finally get her going.”

Sherlock, for some reason, felt his heart ease slightly at those words. Victor gave a quiet huff over the line.

“Yeah, s’funny ‘cause she was a late talker. Had us worried.”

Sherlock glanced up from his coffee, his heart turned to ice all over again and sinking rapidly.

“No,” he said quietly. “No, Victor, that was your niece. Violet was talking at nine months.”

The silence that followed was too long.

“You’re right,” Victor said after a moment. “Of course. Nine months.”

Sherlock swallowed hard.

“Victor, what was her first word?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw John lean forward.

“Water,” Victor said. Sherlock closed his eyes.

“No,” he said softly. “No, it was – it was _horse_. Except she couldn’t say it properly, and it sounded like _hose_ , but she kept saying it and pointing to that picture book, and we knew what she meant. _Water_ came later. After… after _dad_.”

“Listen, Victor,” John jumped in, putting a calming hand on Sherlock’s arm, “we’re almost through to you, all right? But we need you to keep talking to us, so why don’t you tell me about the match last week? I know you watched it. What’d you think of it?”

They both talked to him, trying to keep him calm and focused, and for over an hour assured him that help was only fifteen minutes away. Victor’s confusion was increasing, as were his bouts of memory loss, and they were able to keep the fabrication going until almost ten.

The rescue teams broke through to the basement half an hour later, but Victor had been caught in the partial ceiling collapse and they couldn’t reach him right away. 

“They’ve got to stabilize the ceiling before they can start clearing the rubble away,” Lestrade informed Sherlock quietly while John talked to Victor, filling him in on what was happening and why there was all that clamour around him.

“And how long will that take?”

Lestrade simply squeezed his shoulder. His phone rang again, and he excused himself to answer it. Sherlock returned to his chair, and his blood ran cold at the look on John’s face.

“What is it?” he demanded, and then he turned to the microphone. “Victor? _Victor.”_

John shook his head.

“It’s no use, Sherlock. I think he’s unconscious. He stopped answering a little bit ago.” 

Sherlock grabbed the whistle again and blew once, twice, three times before John took it from his hands. 

“How long does he have?” Sherlock asked, breath quickening in his chest. 

John hesitated, and then sighed. “Not long.”

Before Sherlock could answer, Lestrade breezed back into the room. His face was stone, and the bottom dropped out of Sherlock’s stomach. 

“They’ve got him,” Lestrade said, and as those weren’t the words Sherlock was expecting, he faltered. “They’ve got him, Sherlock. It’s over.”

“Is he alive?” Sherlock asked, and when Lestrade’s expression didn’t change, he felt his knees turn to water.

“He’s alive,” Lestrade said quickly, reaching out a hand to steady him. “He’s on his way to the hospital.”

“Then what is it?” Sherlock demanded, because Lestrade’s expression _wasn’t right_. 

“He wasn’t breathing when they found him,” Lestrade said softly. “We don’t know for how long, and they were able to get him breathing again before packing him off to the hospital. But there could be brain damage. It looks like they won’t know for sure until he wakes up.”

Sherlock turned to John.

“How long was he out?”

“He stopped responding to me about half a minute before you sat down again. If he stopped breathing then, too, then he went several minutes without oxygen.” John’s face was grave. “That doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s enough.”

“Go home, lad,” Lestrade advised. “Go be with Violet. They’ll call you the moment they know anything. And there’s no sense in putting Violet through the pain of waiting at the hospital if...”

He trailed off, but Sherlock caught his meaning. 

There was nothing to do but wait. Sherlock followed John in a daze back to Baker Street, where he showered and dressed and, at John’s firm insistence, ate. 

When he emerged from the kitchen, John had disappeared up to his old room in order to call Mary. Mrs Hudson, who had been watching Violet again, had returned to her flat.

Violet was sitting on the floor in the main room, a book open in her lap and her brow furrowed in concentration as she read. Sherlock crouched behind her and kissed the top of her head, and then glanced over her shoulder at the book she was holding.

“What are you reading about?”

“Bees,” she said simply. “I found it on your bookshelf.”

It was one of his many apiology tomes, and must have been miles beyond her comprehension.

“Did you know that bees can fly for over six miles?” she asked as he sat next to her on the rug.

“I did,” Sherlock said softly. He gathered her into his lap, and she rested the back of her head against his shoulder as she continued to read. He rested his cheek against her hair and, after a moment, closed his eyes. His daughter was a warm, real presence in his arms, a part of Victor that he could touch and hold. 

Victor was mistaken. Violet had _his_ eyes, and his nose. She had his smile, too, and surely that was his laugh that Sherlock heard every time she giggled.

He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t raise a child alone if Victor died, much less one who looked—and sounded—so much like the man he loved so dearly. Surely the pain would kill him. 

Sherlock stayed in his room with Violet that night. She huddled under the blankets while he stretched out on top of the covers, hands behind his head, staring at the strange shadows on the ceiling. He didn’t mean to sleep, but the next time he blinked, dawn was breaking and Violet was curled up against his side. 

He smoothed her dark hair—Victor’s dark hair—off her forehead, and kissed her cheek as she started to wake. He hadn’t heard from the hospital, but visiting hours would start soon, and he couldn’t bear to be away any longer when Victor was so close.

“Come on,” he said softly as Violet peered at him out of bleary eyes. “Let’s go see your dad.”

\----

Sherlock was still listed as Victor’s emergency contact, and upon arrival at the hospital he was informed at Victor had woken half an hour before. 

“Go on,” he said, gently steering Violet towards the door to Victor’s room, feeling weak with relief. “Go say hello. I’ll be right there.”

He spoke for a time with Victor’s doctor, listening as the man rattled off Victor’s injuries, trying to piece together a coherent story from them all. Victor’s ribs had been bruised and he had sprained his wrist in the ceiling collapse, that much Sherlock had been right about. And John had accurately diagnosed the concussion. But there were added, anomalous injuries, like bruises on his arms, wrists, and ankles, and a shallow laceration on his left side. 

The doctor didn’t theorize, or perhaps he didn’t see the connection, but Sherlock knew what those particular injuries meant. Someone had restrained Victor, and at some point he had come dangerously close to being stabbed in the torso. He had been centimeters from death not long before that building came down on his head, meaning he had nearly died twice on this mission of Mycroft’s.

Anger simmered in Sherlock’s chest at the thought, anger that was directed both at Victor and his attackers. He hoped he kept the worst of it from his voice when he finally asked, “What’s his prognosis?”

“We’re going to keep him here under observation for a day or two. He’s dehydrated and battered, but it looks like he’ll make a full recovery.”

Sherlock nodded wordlessly, dismissing the doctor. But he lingered for a while in the corridor outside Victor’s room, his heart knocking painfully against his ribcage. This was absurd. He had no reason to feel apprehension, especially given the ease with which they had been speaking to one another these past two days. 

That didn’t change the fact that they hadn’t laid eyes on one another in close to a year.

He was pulled from his thoughts by a nurse who came hurrying down the otherwise-deserted corridor. She shot him a sidelong, curious glance before continuing on her way, and Sherlock gritted his teeth, trying to find his courage. If he didn’t go into Victor’s room now, he was going to turn and bolt. 

They spent all their time, it seemed, either running to or away from one another. There was no middle ground.

The lights had been dimmed in Victor’s room, even though it was the middle of the day and the rest of the hospital was awake and bustling. Likely, this was to avoid putting undue strain on his eyes, allowing him to adjust after being stuck in a pitch-black room for hours on end. 

Victor looked shattered, which wasn’t surprising, given that he had been awake upwards of forty-eight hours or more. His jaw and upper lip were shadowed by two days’ worth of stubble, and bruises marred his arms. An oxygen line ran to his nose, likely just a precaution, and he was also hooked up to an IV. There were purple smudges under his eyes, so dark that they were nearly black.

Nonetheless, it appeared as though the past year had been very good to him. He was thirty-six now, and as striking as ever. His features seemed to have only sharpened with age. He was sporting a healthy, even tan, and Sherlock was struck by a mental image of him outside with the horses and Violet.

And he hadn’t been there for any of it. 

Sherlock suppressed the sudden pang and moved closer. Violet had climbed up onto the bed with Victor. She made no sound, but her face was buried in his chest and her tiny shoulders were shaking. Victor’s eyes were a mixture of helpless and relieved when they met Sherlock’s gaze, and he mouthed _Hey_ over Violet’s head. He was holding her as tightly as he could manage around the equipment hooked up to his body.

Sherlock stood frozen for a moment, transfixed by the sight of the man he had missed so terribly. And then he was struck by the sight of him holding Violet, the child he had been raising on his own since she was two, and Sherlock realised how much of an outsider he truly was. He was an intruder upon this tiny family, a figure who appeared in Violet’s life only a few times a year and disappeared just as suddenly. 

He didn’t belong with them.

“Don’t you dare.” Victor’s voice was a croak, and barely audible over the hiss of the oxygen. It still stopped Sherlock in his tracks, and he turned back to the bed. Victor’s eyes were too bright, and his voice wavered. “Don’t you _dare_ , Sherlock Holmes. Come back here.”

There weren’t any chairs by the bed, and so Sherlock sat on the edge of the mattress. He laid a hand on Violet’s back and began to rub slow, soothing circles between her shoulder blades. Victor moved his arm so that Sherlock could sit properly on the bed and then draped it over his legs, as there was hardly room for the three of them to be on the bed at once. Sherlock squeezed his arm, Victor’s flesh warm beneath his palm, and they gazed at one another for a long moment. 

“Hey, stranger,” Victor whispered. “It’s good to see you.”

Sherlock’s eyes burned, and he didn’t trust his voice. Violet shifted just then, saving him from speech.

“Careful, Violet,” he cautioned, springing forward and clamping a hand down on the IV that ran into Victor’s arm in order to protect it. The last thing they needed was for the needle to be ripped out. “Careful with your dad; he’s hurt.”

“Her dad’s had worse,” Victor said dryly, attempting a smile. 

“Her dad’s a fool if he thinks that makes this any better,” Sherlock snapped. 

Victor sobered instantly. He adjusted Violet in his arms and cupped the back of her head, holding her tightly against him as she continued to weep quietly. 

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he whispered against her hair. “I’m so sorry I frightened you. But I’m all right, see?”

Sherlock returned his hand to Violet’s back. His anger at Victor could wait for a more opportune moment.

“He’s going to be fine,” he said to Violet. “I promise. And soon – soon you’ll get to go home.”

This didn’t produce the reaction he had been hoping for, or expecting. Instead, Violet lifted her head off Victor’s chest, and her tear-stained face twisted in anger. 

_ “No,”  _ she said. “No, I’m not going!”

Sherlock blinked at her, and then at Victor, who also looked perplexed.

“Violet,” Victor said gently, “don’t you want to go back home?”

“You always make me leave him!” she snapped. “I want to stay with Dad!”

Hurt flashed across Victor’s face, and when Violet buried her face in his shirt and began to cry again, he looked stricken. He returned a hand to the back of her head and stroked her hair, murmuring nonsense assurances in her ear. He handled her distress naturally, as a man who had been soothing fears and calming Violet for years. But this time, it was failing, and Victor looked utterly helpless. 

“Violet.”

She lifted her head off Victor’s chest and looked tearfully at Sherlock. He swiped a thumb under her eyes, brushing away the tears. 

“Your dad is only doing what’s best for you,” he said softly. “He loves you very much.”

“I don’t want to leave!”

“I know,” Sherlock said gently. “And I’ll miss you. But you need to go with him. It’s not forever.”

“Dad –”

“Violet.” He kissed her forehead. “You must to listen to your dad, and go where he goes. And you need to be kind to him. He… works very hard to keep you safe. You must always remember that.”

Victor stared at him in astonishment for a moment before turning back to Violet. He stroked a hand through her hair.

“We won’t be leaving right away,” he rasped. He gave a rueful smile. “Dad needs to recover first. Then… I’m sure we can arrange to spend a few days here with Daddy. If he’s not too busy.”

Sherlock shook his head. 

“Not for you.”

Violet was temporarily mollified, though she refused to let Sherlock out of her sight. She eventually fell asleep, exhausted from the morning’s emotional events. Victor followed not long after, and it was only then that Sherlock dared step away. He texted both Lestrade and John in order to keep them updated, and then went in search of coffee. 

When Sherlock returned to Victor’s room, the pair was still fast asleep in the bed. He was reminded of Sunday afternoons when Violet was a baby, how Victor would fall asleep on the sofa with Violet on his chest and a technical manual abandoned on the floor. She was too big for that now, of course, and slept instead with her body pressed against his side. Victor had a sturdy arm wrapped around her, holding her close, and his chin rested against the top of her head.

Sherlock bent over his daughter’s still form and pressed a kiss to her flushed cheek, right over the trail of a dried tear. When he pulled back, bleary blue eyes met his, and his breath caught in his chest.

“It really is good to see you,” Victor murmured, a groggy smile on his lips. “I mean that.”

Sherlock gently extracted Violet from Victor’s grip, careful not to disturb the IV or oxygen lines, and moved her to the empty bed on the other side of the room. He covered her with his Belstaff coat and, after ensuring that she was still deeply asleep, returned to Victor’s side. He perched on the bed near Victor’s hip.

“How do you feel?” he asked finally, falling back on conventional questions when words failed him. 

“Don’t feel a thing,” Victor murmured. He blinked several times, as though trying to bring Sherlock’s face into focus. “You look well.”

“You look fantastic.”

Victor snorted. 

“I haven’t showered in two days and I’m drugged out of my mind.”

“Mm. I always did hate that about you.” It had been a running joke between the two of them that Victor never could manage to look less than stellar. He was stunning, no matter the time or circumstances. Even now, after a two-day ordeal, he looked wonderful. 

Though maybe that was partly to do with the fact that Sherlock had been so terrified, and seeing Victor alive now was a wondrous thing.

“The doctors seem confident that you’ll be released within a day or two.”

Victor nodded and sighed.

“M’sorry for all of this,” he said quietly. “Was Greg’s team very put out?”

“I think they rather enjoyed talking to you, actually.” Sherlock gave a wry smile, which Victor returned. “You made quite an impression on a couple of them. Though Lestrade may never forgive you for the paperwork he’s going to be wading through.”

“I have a feeling Mycroft will take care of that,” Victor said, sobering. “We know who did this, Sherlock. There will be no need for an investigation. Mycroft will handle the details once he debriefs me, and this case will be closed quietly.”

“Erased, you mean,” Sherlock said, and Victor nodded. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But it’s just the way it is. You know that.”

Sherlock nodded tightly, because he _did_ know, and he hated it. He despised the clandestine operations; the closed-door meetings and secrets that had become a fixture of their years together. He had never liked Mycroft’s manipulations and despised them when they started to include the most important person in his life. 

He despised them still, but he had learned long ago that there was very little he could do about it. 

Except this time, because now Victor and Mycroft had someone else to consider when they planned out their missions, and they had failed miserably this time around.

“Victor,” he said finally, “whatever you were doing in that warehouse is between you and Mycroft. I know better than to try to get you to give me a straight answer about your missions.”

He stopped.

“But,” Victor prompted.

“But,” Sherlock said, inclining his head, “you almost got yourself killed, and it certainly wasn’t an accident that that building came down on your head. So I need to know: Is Violet in danger?”

Victor stared at him for a long minute, the kind of look he used to give Sherlock when they were still married and Sherlock was pressing him for confidential information about missions that Victor simply couldn’t give. But Sherlock wasn’t going to back down this time, not where Violet was involved, and Victor eventually relented.

“No,” he said. “No, their issue was with me, and me alone. They have no interest in anyone else, even someone close to me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

And while that wasn’t exactly detailed enough for Sherlock’s liking, he had always trusted both Victor and his judgment. He nodded, indicating that he was done pursuing the topic, and Victor relaxed.

“I don’t do missions for Mycroft all that often anymore,” he said. “Truly. Maybe once a year he’ll ask for my help, and I’ll do what I can. He sends a team of his own people to watch after Violet while I’m gone. They cook and clean and take her to school, and they protect her as needed. It’s all quite safe.”

“Except this time,” Sherlock said. “This might be the first time something’s gone wrong, but it won’t be the last. Victor, she needs you. I can’t ask you to give up the work, because you wouldn’t ask that of me. And I don’t know that I could, even if you did ask. But…”

He trailed off, because he truly didn’t know what he was asking. Victor’s hand found his own.

“You were able to give up the drugs,” Victor said softly. Sherlock curled his fingers around Victor’s, feeling calluses and hard flesh beneath his hand. “I think I can take an early retirement from your brother’s service.”

Sherlock tightened his grip on Victor’s hand. 

“You don’t have to do that,” he said, knowing the phrase was expected of him, though he hoped Victor wouldn’t actually take it to heart. 

“To be perfectly honest, I could do without seeing that look on Violet’s face ever again,” Victor admitted. “Same goes for you, Sher. I’m sorry I frightened you.”

Sherlock thought back to that surreal night just under a year ago, when he and Victor had been reunited in the study of Sherlock’s family home. Violet had been left with Mycroft and her grandmother while the news was broken to Victor first, so he could then better guide her through accepting her father’s return. The look on Victor’s face when he laid eyes on Sherlock had been a mixture of incomprehension, terror, and hope, as though he didn’t believe what he was seeing and, at the same  time, feared that it would disappear if he closed his eyes. And when Violet was finally brought into the room…

He never wanted to make his child cry like that again. 

“I’ve done my fair share of frightening you and Violet,” Sherlock admitted at last. “It’s not a burden you share alone. It’s over, Vic. We should focus on that.”

Victor nodded, and squeezed his hand. “Did she behave for you?”

Sherlock snorted. 

“I’m her father. She doesn’t have to ‘behave’ for me. She needs only to be herself.” He felt the corner of his mouth quirk. “Although she did try to convince me that you allowed her to have ice cream for dinner whenever she wanted.”

Victor gave a sharp bark of a laugh. 

“Oh, that schemer. I’m buried under tons of rubble and she was trying to see how she could use that to her advantage!” He paused. “Quite frankly, I think I’m actually impressed. Did it work?”

Sherlock shook his head. “No. Though I may have let her stay up past her bedtime.”

“I think that’s allowed, considering what I put her through. Thank you for watching her.”

Sherlock felt something twist in his gut. 

“She’s my _child_ ,” he said quietly. “You don’t need to thank me for that. It’s what parents _do.”_

Victor, thankfully, refrained from pointing out that, not all that long ago, Sherlock might have resented all that time alone with Violet. Now, however, Sherlock couldn’t think of anything he wanted more.

“Violet’s so big,” Sherlock said after some minutes of silence. “When did that happen? It’s only been a few months since I last saw her.”

“Try six,” Victor said with a gentle smile. “But you’re right. Seems like I’m buying her new clothes every other week, she grows out of them so fast.”

Sherlock dropped his gaze to their joined hands. There were more veins on the back of Victor’s than he last remembered, and a new smattering of thin, white scars. There was so much he had missed, and so much that he didn’t know. 

“Damn it,” he whispered. “Damn it, Victor, this is absurd.”

“What is?”

Sherlock waved a hand vaguely, lifting his eyes to Victor’s concerned face.

“You. Me. _This_.” He shook his head. “We live half a world apart, and for what reason?”

“Because we couldn’t make it work,” Victor said softly, his face falling. The lines around his mouth deepened. 

“That was a long time ago,” Sherlock said

“Does that matter?”

“It might,” Sherlock said. “Stay here, Victor.”

“We will,” Victor said.

“No. Stay _for good,”_ Sherlock said emphatically. Victor looked torn.

“I can’t,” he whispered. “ _We_ can’t.”

“You can,” Sherlock said firmly. “I kept the old flat; you can live there. It’s only ten minutes from Baker Street, and Violet can walk to school.”

“You – kept the flat?”

Sherlock nodded. “I didn’t want to live there without you, but I couldn’t let it go. It’ll be suitable for now, but we’ll – _you’ll_ need a house as Violet grows. Or there’s always Baker Street, of course.”

“Sherlock -”

“John’s married now,” Sherlock rambled on. “When he moves the rest of his things out of the flat, Violet could have that room. It’s big, Vic, and it has the perfect view. She’d love it.”

Victor gaped at him for a moment, and then gave a rasping laugh.

“Does John know you’re trying to get rid of him?” he asked, attempting a weak joke in order to deflect the emotionally-charged words. Sherlock rolled his eyes. 

“John may be my closest friend, but he’s not you. He could never be _you_.”

John might be interesting and wonderful in his own right, but Victor was an extension of Sherlock himself. All of these years without him had felt simply _wrong_ , as though Sherlock had been missing a limb. They were two halves of a perfect, complete whole.

Victor swallowed hard. 

“We have no idea,” he said quietly, “ _no idea_ , if we can make this work again.”

“I know,” Sherlock said. “Christ, Victor, _I know_. But the odds are on our side. Eighteen years I’ve known you--over half my life--and the only thing I can think of right now is that I’ll be _damned_ if I’m saying goodbye to you again. I could never get tired of you, or of Violet. And I’m missing _everything_ when it comes to her. She’s growing up, and I’m not there. Just stay. It’s all I ask.”

Victor’s hand tightened in Sherlock’s grip, and he drew a wavering breath.

“I suppose,” he said shakily, “it would be good for Violet to be around her other dad for a while. And her grandmother’s here, of course, and a certain infuriating uncle...”

“Whose influence will hopefully be offset by Uncle Greg and Doctor Watson,” Sherlock pointed out, and try as he might, he really couldn’t keep the smile from his face. “Victor -”

_ “Yes,”  _ Victor said, cutting him off. He gave a crooked smile, and a thin line of red ringed the underside of his eyes. “Yes, all right, we’ll stay. Violet and I will take the old flat and we’ll see, okay? We’ll see.”

Seized by impulse, Sherlock cupped Victor’s face with both hands and leaned down. Victor instinctively tilted his head up, and their lips met in a gentle kiss. Victor rested a hand on the back of Sherlock’s head, threading his fingers through the curls. The press of his lips was an absolution, and there was grace in the sigh he breathed against Sherlock’s mouth. When they broke apart, Sherlock gathered Victor into his arms, wrapping him in a loose hug. He buried his face in Victor’s shoulder and breathed in the warm spice of his skin, and doubted he could ever be persuaded to let go.

No. Love had never been their problem.

And this time, maybe it would be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Victor Trevor is a character from ACD canon who appears in “The Adventure of the ‘Gloria Scott.’” While this is not the same VT who has appeared in my other fics, he is a variation on a common theme, so there are similarities that carry over from fic to fic. Needless to say, this VT storyline isn’t related to any other one I’ve written, but if you prefer to indulge in some fanfic-canon bending in order to slot all the stories together, by all means.


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